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Subject: ADFF NEWSLETTER 02_22_2012

Dear Friend,

The Architecture & Design Film Festival
(ADFF) is excited about the exceptional program
of films that will be shown at Chicago's Music
Box Theatre April 12-16. We will screen
more than 30 films (features to award-winning
shorts) from 13 countries and the majority of
these films will be having their Chicago premiere
at the festival. With such a variety being
offered, here is a chance to preview our line-up
and begin to personalize your festival
experience.

American
Homes (Chicago Premiere
)2010 / 12 minutes /
USAThis animated
history, presenting 1,800 years of
residential architecture in North
America, unfolds along a simple timeline,
while notable figures in the world of
design and architecture weigh in on what
a house is, and can be.

Architect of
Dreams (Chicago
Premiere )2009 / 52 minutes /
New ZealandIan Athfield's
architectural designs dot the New Zealand
landscape and are keenly sought after by
home owners. Intelligent, outspoken,
amusing, opinionated and passionate,
Athfield, considered by many to be a
maverick, is one of New Zealand’s most
influential creative figures who bring a
unique vision in his practice of almost
40 years.

ARCHITECT: A Chamber
Opera in Six Scenes(Chicago
Premiere )2012 / 63 minutes /
USAARCHITECTwas
inspired by the work of Louis I. Kahn
(1902-1974), a major figure in
twentieth-century
architecture.ARCHITECTis
a meditation on creativity and the inner
life of the creator. Events are set in
motion by the Trickster god, Momus. The
council of gods has expelled this impish
minor deity down to earth, where he seeks
to inspire mortals to create
buildings

Biophilic Design: The
Architecture of Life(Chicago
Premiere )2011 / 60 minutes /
USABiophilic design is
an innovative way of designing places. We
need nature in a deep and fundamental
fashion, but we have often designed in
ways that both degrade the environment
and alienate us from
nature. WATCH
TRAILER

Concrete
Coast(Chicago Premiere
)2009 / 26 minutes /
SpainConcrete
Coastis
about the social, cultural and
environmental effects of the last bit of
un-urbanized Spanish Mediterranean coast
being built for residential tourism in
the Region of Murcia.

Detroit Wild
City2010 / 80 minutes /
FranceFlorent Tillon's film
begins with familiar but inevitably
arresting images of Detroit's decay into
post-apocalyptic pastoralism, but doesn't
end there. While most cinematic pilgrims
have portrayed the Motor City as a giant
canvas onto which they project their
outsider fantasies, A minimalist
but intelligent travelogue that resists
sensationalism, Detroit Wild City focuses
on people rather than ruins. It suggests
that while macronarratives may help us
understand the past, micronarratives will
describe the future, and Detroit's
destiny will be the product of many
individual, small-group and localized
efforts.
WATCH TRAILER

EAMES: The Architect
and the
Painter2011/ 82 minutes /
USAThe Architect and the
Painteris
the first film about Charles and Ray
Eames since their deaths and the only
film to peer inside their collaboration,
their marriage and the "Renaissance
studio" they created in a gritty
warehouse in Venice, CA. Narrated by
James Franco, the film draws from a trove
of archival material, primarily the
stunning films and photographs produced
in mind-boggling volume by Charles, Ray,
and their staff during the hyper-creative
forty years of the Eames
Office.
WATCH
TRAILER

The Gruen Effect:
Victor Gruen and the Shopping
Mall(Chicago
Premiere 2009/ 50 minutes /
AustriaInThe
Gruen Effect, an architect's
life, work, and critical humor become a
means to make sense of the cities we live
in today. The Viennese architect Victor
Gruen is considered the father of the
shopping mall. His ideas about urban
planning, both influential and abused,
have led to cities that serve the new
gods of consumption. By tracing Gruen’s
path from prewar Vienna to 1950s' America
and back to Europe in 1968, the
documentary explores the themes and
mistranslations that have come to define
urban life.

High Line Phase
2 (Chicago Premiere
)2011 / 6 minutes /
USAThe film captures
perspectives of both design firms, Ric
Scofidio from Diller, Scofidio and
Renfro, and James Corner.

Lioness Among Lions
–The Architect Zaha Hadid(Chicago
Premiere )2010 / 52 minutes /
GermanyWinner of the
prestigious Pritzker prize in 2004 and
the Praemium Imperiale in 2009, the
English-Iraqi architect and designer Zaha
Hadid (born in 1950) has long been
controversial. This film spotlights a
leading figure in deconstructivism and
her visionary achievements around the
world.

Louis LeRoy – Endless
Work in Time and Space(Chicago
Premiere )2009 / 14 minutes /
NetherlandsA short portrait of
the Dutch artist Louis LeRoy and his work
the Ecokathedraal in Mildam in the North
of Holland.

Mendelsohn's
Incessant Visions(Chicago Premiere
)2012 / 71 minutes /
IsraelThis film is a
cinematic meditation about the untold
story of Erich Mendelsohn whose life and
career were as enigmatic and tragic as
the path of the century. Erich and Louise
Mendelsohn have wondered between
continents, between world wars, between
success and failure. Award-winning
filmmaker, Duki Dror (The Journey of Vaan
Nguyen, Raging Dove) has created a
spectacular interpretation based on Erich
and Louise's relationship, for one of the
most captivating chapters in the
development of modern art.
WATCH
TRAILER

The Man Who Built My
Childhood(Chicago Premiere
)2008 / 4 minutes /
CanadaJospeh Pettick
designed a staggering 500 buildings in
the Canadian province of Saskatchewan,
and his impact on filmmaker Brian
Stockton was profound.

Minka(Chicago
Premiere )2011 / 16 minutes /
JapanMinkais
a short documentary about a remarkable
Japanese farmhouse and the memories it
contains.

Mission
Statements(U.S. Premiere
)2011 / 77 minutes /
NetherlandsIn 1991 the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands
decided to promote national architecture
abroad. All over the world new embassies
were realised by prominent Dutch
architects.Mission
Statementsshows
the background of the buildings and
presents a stunning view behind the
curtains of daily life in the embassies.
Did the architecture really add to the
diplomacy the Netherlands stand
for?Mission
Statementsunveils
the underestimated cultural aspect in
international diplomacy and the
misunderstanding that comes with
it.
WATCH
TRAILER

Passive
Passion(Chicago Premiere
)2011 / 21 minutes /
USATwenty years ago,
physicists synthesized a package of
design principles that reduces a
dwelling’s energy use by 90%. Over 20,000
buildings in Europe have been built to
the Passive House standard, enthusiasts
in the U.S. actively work to spread the
concept.

Pool Party(Chicago
Premiere )2010 / 75 minutes /
USAPool
Partyis
the surprising story of an abandoned
swimming pool, the largest in New York
City that became the most significant
music venue since CBGB's. Both an indie
music showcase and an urban history
lesson, Pool Party traces the process of
gentrification of Williamsburg, Brooklyn
through the story of McCarren
Pool.
WATCH
TRAILER

The Pruitt-Igoe
Myth2011 / 83 minutes /
USAThe Pruitt-Igoe
Myth tells the story of the
transformation of the American city in
the decades after World War II, through
the lens of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe
housing development and the St. Louis
residents who called it
home.The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
seeks to set the historical record
straight. To examine the interests
involved in Pruitt-Igoe's creation. To
re-evaluate the rumors and the stigma. To
implode the myth.
WATCH TRAILER

Public Farm
1(Chicago Premiere
)2010 / 18 minutes /
USAPublic Farm
1is
about the building of a sustainable,
biodegradable, cardboard farm in the
unlikely location of New York City. For
WorkAC, winning MoMA PS1’s prestigious
Young Architects Program competition was
their first big break.

Robert A.M. Stern: 15
Central Park West and the History of the
New York Apartment House(Chicago
Premiere) 2011 / 24 minutes /
USAEven during the Great
Recession of 2008, one new apartment
house in New York City continued to set
the bar for real-estate prices: 15
Central Park West. Designed by Robert A.
M. Stern Architects, the lavish,
limestone-clad structure from 61st to
62nd streets is arguably one of the most
luxurious residential buildings to rise
in the city in decades. Stern
deliberately evokes the grand era of New
York apartments designed in the 1920s and
1930s, especially the intricately planned
architecture of Rosario Candela. Rounding
out this exploration of the New York City
apartment house are brief glimpses of
certain modern residential towers in
lower Manhattan designed by today's
vanguard architects.

South Pond(Chicago
Premiere )2010 / 4 minutes /
USASpirit of Space has
captured the pavilion designed by Studio
Gang Architects as it took
shape.

Studio Gang
Architects: Columbia College Chicago
MPC2010 / 3 minutes /
USAHedrich Blessing
Photographers and Thirst Design join to
create a visual interpretation of Studio
Gang Architects project to build a film
school in the south loop of
Chicago.

Three
Walls(Chicago Premiere
)2011 / 26 minutes /
USACapturing the
melancholic absurdity and shifting nature
of the modern day
office,Three
Wallstraces
the development of the office cubicle
from its inception in the late 1960s to
its current status as the dominant form
of office furniture in North
America.

Up to the Sky –
Hearst Tower, New York(Chicago
Premiere )2009 / 26 minutes /
GermanyIn the midst of this
skyline one new tower is creating a
furore. It is the Hearst Tower, built by
the British architect Norman Foster.
Norman Foster’s high-rise has been
standing on the edge of Central Park
since the end of 2006. The Hearst Tower
rises 182 meters into the sky. A rather
modest height. And soon this small-scale
skyscraper may be overlooked on the dense
New York skyline. The Hearst Tower is New
York's first green skyscraper. The
structure is efficient - and it is also
extremely elegant. "The most beautiful
new skyscraper in Manhattan since 1967",
praised him the "New
Yorker".

Unfinished
Spaces(Chicago Premiere
)2011 / 86 minutes /
USACuba's ambitious
National Art Schools project, designed by
three young artists in the wake of
Castro's Revolution, is neglected, nearly
forgotten, then ultimately rediscovered
as a visionary architectural masterpiece.
In 1961, three young, visionary
architects were commissioned by Fidel
Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba's
National Art Schools on the grounds of a
former golf course in Havana, Cuba.
Construction of their radical designs
began immediately and the school's first
classes soon followed. Unfinished Spaces
features intimate footage of Fidel
Castro, showing his devotion to creating
a worldwide showcase for art, and it also
documents the struggle and passion of
three revolutionary artists
.WATCH
TRAILER

Volume Zero: The Work
of Charles
Correa (Chicago Premiere
)2009/ 59 minutes /
IndiaHaving built
prolifically in India, architect Charles
Correa is less known in the west, but
nevertheless has received the highest
awards worldwide for his work. Born in
India and trained in the United States,
Correa’s architecture incorporates the
philosophies of both traditions. Although
often austere and modern, Correa’s work is
never cold or alienating; it is based in
the concerns of daily life, culture, and
climate.